[Corpora-List] how many subscribers are there on corpora-list?

[Trevor Jenkins]

On 22 Aug 2013, at 10:05, "Krishnamurthy, Ramesh" <r.krishnamurthy at aston.ac.uk> wrote:

> I think membership of the Corpus Linguistics group page on Facebook is 'closed', ie you have to ask to join it. I don't know whether this only limits who can post to the group, or also limits who can read the posts.

It's described as an "open group" of which I'm not a member but I can read (some? or all?) posts there. Facebook's reputation for security is such that it wouldn't matter whether the group was closed and only members could read posts as one security expert has shown in the last few days it is possible to write on someone's private wall (that someone being Mark Zuckerberg). http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckbergs-facebook-page-hacked-to-highlight-flaw-8774613.html and it isn't that long since Zuckerberg's sister posted photos that anyone could read http://www.theguardian.com/technology/us-news-blog/2012/dec/27/facebook-founder-sister-zuckerberg-photo

> I think subscribership to corpora-list also limits who can email to the list.

As the list is running with MailMan that is the case (I put more trust in MM's security mechanisms than I do in Facebook). But it does not limit who can read the list. 

> I don't know whether the readership of corpora-list emails is larger or smaller than the readership of Facebook posts. If corpora-list emails can be read by more people than Facebook posts, that seems to confirm my original intuition that emailing a question to corpora-list is likely to reach more people than a Facebook post…

The passive "membership" of both the Facebook group and this mailing list is entirely unknown. We can say nothing about the marketing reach of either. More interested parties may look to the Facebook group than to the list for conference announcements. Meaning that putting an announcement on the "wall" may result in more attendee bookings than sending it out from here.

> I don't see why displaying the *number* of subscribers to corpora-list will affect their privacy in any way. As the archives are open to non-subscribers, email addresses can easily be obtained by trawling the archives anyway?

But that *number* tells the prospect nothing. The count of subscribers to a list includes dead addresses, fake addresses, troubled addresses, uninterested addresses, scraper addresses, passive addresses and active addresses. The last two are the useful indicators but they can't be determined from a simple count.

I'd be more concerned about privacy of the Facebook group. Not only are the posts open to non-members but the member list is too. Fascinating to see how young and good looking they all are, with the exception of a destitute-looking man sitting on copies of what appear to be past issues of the FT. Names, affliations, how long they have been a member all useful meta-data for someone to gather. 


Regards, Trevor.

<>< Re: deemed!


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